The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld Read Online Free PDF Page B

away, sliding it back into the sun-candle’s light. I explain how the eclipse only lasts a few moments, that nothing and no one stays still for long.
    Two weeks later, I find a New York Times classified ad for a freelance manuscript reader at a Midtown publishing company.
    Still anxious about the subway, I ride my bike from Brooklyn up to Fifty-Third and Third for the interview. My future boss is a friendly man in a purple tie, Simpsons posters on his wall, and bookshelves full of trade paperbacks—thrillers, mysteries, romances, but also some interesting contemporary fiction.
    I quit the delivery job and start my publishing career a few days later. It seems okay at first, a decent gig for a writer: I’m there three or four days a week, and I can show up at ten and leave early if I need to—all I have to do is read and comment on fiction manuscripts, basically the same thing I’d done in graduate school and as an adjunct writing instructor. With all my experience as a teacher, I know that what I should really be doing is applying for instructor positions here in the city. But I’m so intimidated by New York and its inhabitants that I can’t imagine mustering the courage to teach here—not with my slow Colorado drawl, which I worry makes me sound like a plodder in a city of such fast, fluent speakers. So I content myself with sitting solo in my cubicle, quietly adrift on a small sea of other people’s books.

THE L TRAIN
    L TRAIN (Arrives at Bedford Street subway station.): This is a Manhattan-bound L train .
    FEMALE PASSENGER (Boards train, takes seat.)
    L TRAIN: Stand clear of the closing doors, please. This is a Manhattan-bound L train. The next stop is First Avenue .
    FEMALE PASSENGER (Digs around in her handbag, looking for a cell phone.)
    L TRAIN: Want to hear a story?
    FEMALE PASSENGER (Ceases cell phone search. Looks around the empty train car, confused.): What kind of story?
    L TRAIN: A blackout story. One that involves this guy Justin.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: Blackout—you mean he passed out drunk on the train?
    L TRAIN: People pass out by the hundreds on the train every day—there’s no story there. I’m talking about an electrical blackout, a power outage.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: Okay, sure. Tell me a story.
    L TRAIN: So first of all, I run on electricity, understand, so when the power goes out, the trains cease to move. Even if they’re full of passengers, three hundred feet below the East River.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: So what happens to all those people?
    L TRAIN: Sometimes backup generators power up the system. Other times, passengers have to wait until MTA rescue crews walk them out.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: Walk them out where?
    L TRAIN: Through the tunnels on the bench wall. Either to an emergency exit or back to the platform. In some cases, they have to walk directly on the track bed.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: Oh wow.
    L TRAIN: Yeah. It’s not so pleasant. We get a lot of people who freak out. Some piss their pants, or puke all over the place. One lady stepped on a rat and had to be taken to Bellevue.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: Bellevue?
    L TRAIN: The mental hospital. Please do not leave any unattended baggage or personal items on the train. If you see an unattended package, please report it to an MTA employee .
    FEMALE PASSENGER: So where does Justin come in?
    L TRAIN: Before moving here from Colorado, he hears all these stories, about evacuations and trains getting stuck under the East River during the rolling blackouts of 2003—not to mention the threat of terrorist attacks—and it really freaks him out. I’m sorry to report that he develops a big problem with me.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: What do you mean, problem? Like he’s aggrieved with you? Annoyed?
    L TRAIN: Hardly. More like he’s terrified.
    FEMALE PASSENGER: What, seriously?
    L TRAIN: Seriously. I’m talking full-blown panic. He very nearly loses his shit every time he rides. Okay, well, not every time. He does fine on short rides through Manhattan, when there are